Recent Reviews

Pros - they almost sell it for free and aim for the best, sound quality, portable, operate, that Tamagotchi look

Cons - no case, the screen was spent before I get it, UI

50 bucks player, I never thought I could purchase a digital player with this money.
I always thought that Chinese production are cheap or useful but with poor design and low quality, but this player actually works.
Its EQ equalization is good, no obvious fauls.
Though it's short at low frequency, and its high frequency wasn't good enough, but again, it's only 50 bucks, but I think the sound quality is better than most cell phone.
UI is poor, the three color screen makes me wanna cry, may be they shouldn't put a screen on it, just like ipod shuffle.
And again, five pizza is more expensive than that, go get one of it.

Cons - UI could do with some refinement and features, peculiar incompatibility with FLAC tags, screen is too reflective.

xDuoo X2 : Watch out Sansa!​

This review is a part of the review tour organised by Hifinage in India. I'd like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to be on the tour. And more importantly, for keeping a close watch on the Head-fi scene to bring the best bang for our rupee.

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Packaging, Specifications and Build

The xDuoo X2 packaging and accessory list makes a simple yet strong statement. The un-apologetic no frills approach lets you know that all that matters is the matte black, metal, shiny-aviator sporting powerhouse that lies within.

The metal bodied X2 is deceptively light and fits into my palm quite comfortably. The sleek rectangular housing is held together by four torx screws and houses 6 buttons, a microsd slot, micro USB connector, the 1 inch reflective screen cover and a 3.5 mm jack. The 3.5mm output jack is extremely well built (the best I’ve seen) and offers a very secure and tight fit. So secure that it ripped the jack housing off my Ostry KC06(which is the Ostry’s fault).

This is the kind of confidence inspiring build quality I want to see on all portable equipment.

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But: If I had one qualm regarding the build, it would be the slightly more than usual pressure required to register a click on the X2. And at times, the extra hard click would not register which can be a bummer. Also, the screen has a mirror finish which means it's glare-galore when used outside.

The X2 has no internal storage (none that can be used anyway). It has a pretty simple stable UI(at least the FW I tested) that covers most of the essentials and is a fairly frustration-free experience. ​

Sound:

Big disclaimer before the “Sound” section. I tested the X2 with the following IEMs. And I’m sure you will notice that they are all fairly easy to drive IEMs that barely challenge any portable players when it comes to volume levels.

RE400

Ostry KC06

Vsonic VSD1S

Signature Acoustics O16

LG Quadbeat 2

RE 272

With all the listed IEMs, the average listening volume was below the 20/40 mark, which goes to show how much more headroom is available for those power hungry portables.
So volume aside, what mojo did it bring to the feather weight IEMs.

Across all the tested IEMs:
The IEMs sounded very comfortable in the extra power. An improvement in separation was evident (more so on some), which was very welcome as it really ups boosts the immersive quality in your music. I also noticed a modest increase in the level of detail (some did not show this improvement).
The improvement in separation and the slight detail boost translates to a very enjoyable music experience (irrespective of genre) that ensures a smile is plastered on your face every time you plug in.
The hyper efficient Ostry, which I am sure is using some kind of superconductor material, barely exhibited any difference in sonic quality.
The fairly efficient RE400 experienced a boost in separation, but lost some of the extra tight control in the mid-bass.
I expected the RE272 to lap up the extra power and serve up a different experience. But the overall change was similar to the others.

Enter, The Mighty Clip.
Three generations of the biggest bang for your buck audio player that was instantly catapulted into legendary status by Rockbox. Can the xDuoo X2 dethrone the clip? I’ll supply the facts, you decide.

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Power and sound: I can only comment on performance with normal IEMs. You are pretty much covered by the clip for normal IEMs. The X2 may riverdance all over the clip when it comes to power hungry portables. A peek into the X2 thread should give you a fair idea. The “improvements” that I mention in the main sound section are when compared to the Clip plus/zip

Build and buttons: The clip feels plasticky and cheap next to the sturdy X2. However, the years of abuse suffered by the clip shows that the feel does not reflect reliability. The buttons are more pliable on the clip and a lot more clicky on the X2. The dedicated volume buttons on the clip work anywhere in the UI unlike the X2(only on mow playing screen). The build of the 3.5mm output pin on the X2 is clearly superior and plugging in your headphones/IEMs is Headfi-gasmic (Please refer to Jude’s expression at in this video(at 18:21) for a demonstration of the feeling https://youtu.be/6nYrUjIa61w?t=18m21s) Overall, upon first impression, the X2 wins handily in the build department. Long term reliability is yet to be ascertained.

UI: The X2 offers up a fairly usable UI that does cover the basic basics in a non-frustrating fashion(Folder view, EQ presets only, Backlight, Standby timer, fairly detailed ‘now playing’ screen, save last play location, quick start up time, multiple repeat options, almost no scan time, drag n drop etc). In @H20Fidelity’s opinion and experience, all this is a big ask from Chinese audiophile DAPs. It would be ridiculously unfair to compare Rockbox to the X2 UI. But it can be compared to the stock Sansa offering. The Sansa UI is more feature rich and contains small details that make it a more intuitive and easy experience. It is easy to get going with the X2 as the basic features it offers are not more than one click away. The lack of custom EQ is a sore point. For ex: I tend to bump the sub-bass on my RE400/RE272, and no EQ preset can cut it. I hope it will be added in later FW updates. The volume buttons only function on the now-playing screen and do not serve any purpose in the rest of the UI. I believe this has now been fixed in the new FW(which I haven’t tried)

The only major bug I faced was the hit and miss compatibility with my FLAC library. It would freeze or play with two second skips. At first I thought these were probably 24/96 albums (which the X2 doesn’t support). But this wasn’t the case. The feedback on the X2 thread seems to indicate that this is related to the metadata tags. But this is something that should and could be rectified with a new FW update (unless it is already?).

Battery Life:
I used the player for around 4 days and had to charge it twice. I’d estimate the battery time to be somewhere in the 12-17 hour range. I did notice that the last few battery bars drained a lot quicker.

Wrap Up:
Keep in mind that I haven’t tested the X2 with more power-hungry sources so my conclusion is based on the average IEM available today. On sheer sound quality alone, the X2 slightly edges (not necessarily in all cases) the Sansa Clip ZIP. On build quality alone, the X2 is definitely ahead of the Clip range. The Clip wins when it comes to UI, ease of operation. However the X2 UI is not a deal breaker an offers the basics.
For the average IEM I would pick the Clip over the X2. On the go, I use inexpensive travel IEMs and I’d pick a friendly UI over a slight improvement in presentation.
So, it hasn’t dethroned the clip, but given the reports on the driving power, it is more versatile. If your regular-use portables are power hungry, the X2 seems to be(from reports) a no-brainer for the price.

I’ve somehow not mentioned the price! At 55$ it bats right next to the Clip and well in the “Extreme Value” bracket.

Conclusion:
In short, Rockbox this beast and the clip doesn’t stand a chance.

Please let me know if you have any comments, questions or suggestions. Thanks for reading. Quoting the X2 :

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PS: The xDuoo X2 thread has a lot of impressions, troubleshooting tips and pictures. I'd made a mini-catalog a while back. You could check it out here

Awesome review! Quite entertaining, and thankfully void of that gross flowery language that nobody but the reviewer uses/understands.

I wonder how this stacks up to the sansa clip sport. From memory, the sport sounds about the same as the clip+ on normal firmware (rockbox does not enhance SQ as that is a hardware feature, but rather it offers better sound optimization than the pitiful stock custom EQ).

Sport is plastic, but has a beefier jack (though still probably nowhere near as solid as X2), and a very long battery life. Also, the EQ is not bad (nothing compared to cowon's EQ), but it gets the job done well enough.

There was tour taking place for a new mp3player here in india, claiming to be more powerful than sansa clip and even the fiio X1. I have neither of these, but had experience with the clip. What I have is a couple of cowon players and a few mobile phones. As I was looking for mp3player for myself, I thoughts, lets bother these guys and see if I can get a chance to have a few hours with these. And finally I had it with me last week.

First thing I noticed as I plugged it into my pc is that, there is no internal memory. You are bound to have a memory card. And there is no flap to cover it too. 2nd one is these are tiny. Small, as small as a homelite match box!! Have a look at the specs first, and then we will move on to more serious things. (I will put it in past tense, as I had only 4days to play with it and I don’t have it with me now.) And lastly let me thank HiFiNage for this tour and including me in it.

Build and U.I.:-

At the first look, these are small and good looking players, light weight too. A bit on the thicker side when compared to IPods and my j3, but it’s not bothering. Built is sturdy and will take a few drops if you are one of those who drop things now and then. Buy it can’t be said about the keys. Squeaky will be the word for these. There is a 0.96 inch Organic led display. Bright enough to read under direct sunlight. Other than that, there is a Micro USB port to charge and transfer data to your card. And, and I won’t advice that, if you are home and have a card reader, please use it. Because the transfer rate via this player is 3 mbps at max and average is 2.5 mbps. Whereas my 5 years old J3 can reach up to 6mbps. I am not complaining but even transferring a few albums (flac) will take you Hours! I filled my 16 GB card with 9 GB of files and it took 45minutes. Slow it is.

Then it turned it on. Boom!! On my face, it reads “format error...” I looked for all the albums it can’t play, then I deleted those, it’s frustrating, and I had a thought which is similar to “it’s a Flac player man, come on”

Then I noticed that the U.i. is sluggish, Keys were not responding properly. It takes more than one click at times. Pressing the center button to select and wake might not work at the first attempt. Same goes for the menu too. Battery indicator is not upto the mark too, after playing for 10 hours, it shows ¾ full, but it will show Zero after a few more hours. It needs to be addressed.

Two menus can be found here, one when music is paused, it shows, card folder, delete file, delete folder and exit, 2nd one is while playing, it shows Eq( natural, pop, rock, jazz, classical, soft, and DBB), repeat( normal, repeat one, folder, repeat folder, repeat all, random and Intro),Dir navigation, back light, off time and exit. I would have liked some more Eq options, preferably a user Customizable Eq would have done good.

Along press will show the Settings menu, I never got into it, was not bothered about it.

Now playing screen shows, Battery, What is the now playing song number, number of songs in queue, name of the song, album and artists name too. Total duration of the song and time elapsed. In the bottom row, you can find the Applied Eq, File bit rate, but its supports three digits only and when your flac file is over 1k, it shows 999. Let’s move on to the Main part, sound quality.

Sound quality:-

Let me start by saying that the X2 has some background sound with sensitive earphones like doppio, it’s not much but it's there, always, even when you are playing. Play with sensitive analytical earphones like doppio and it revels where this little player is going wrong. Not a problem for this price. In fact it’s one of the best sounding budget players I have experienced. Better than clip and those Philips gogears I used to have.

Let talk about its power, which was highlighted by the tour conductor, and I have to admit that these have plenty of power, I usually hear at lower volume and with this player I was satisfied with volume level close to 13 out of 40 steps, if you do volume matching with J3, it’s close to 18 out of 40 steps. Even my Hd380pro was driven without any problem. Other like T2, Ath-im70 and Doppio were driven effortlessly.

Let me start with bass. Here one can observe that bass is not flat, even with Eq set to natural, you have more than enough bass, a bit elevated than usual, I tried to play with Eq but I liked Natural the most. Others had their own flaws, some were not clear enough, slightly edgy, some had bolted bass and some had the highs toned down. Texture and presentation is good. Notes are thick and had enough details too. Decay is a bit lacking but it’s not a problem, its fast enough. Mid bass is a bit more prominent but sub bass is present too. I have to say that sub bass could have been better, with a bit more control and extension too. Doesn’t interrupt with the mids but I think it could have been cleaner.

Let’s move on to mids and highs. Mids were clean, vocals are really good and forward, me likey, and instruments were well pronounced and nicely placed too with enough space between them to separate but was not super clean. Sometimes I feel it could have done better with imaging, Presentation is good too. I can notice that vocals were elevated, and were lush, but lacking some texture. Sound stage was good but not J3 good. Sadly you can’t customize it like the j3 but yes, it’s good enough for a player in this budget range. Highs are lacking, lacking enough to say that it lacked some appeal to me. I like my highs full and sharp with plenty of attack, lacks much clarity too, its kind if veiled and foggy. It’s not bad. Instruments still play nicely and are detailed but not exactly vivid.

Comparison with J3:-

Where j3 likes to puts it cool and calmly, X2 pushes it hard and hot, should i mention a bit hurried and slightly veiled overall with some veiling up top. Extension too is not to the mark with highs. Texture , presentation, layering, separation too is better with J3, not to mention the more user friendly U.I. of J3, but, meh, it’s so cheap and is close to 80% what my j3 can do with sound quality. Yes j3 is more versatile with equalizer and far better with UI and many more features, but it’s discontinued now!!! J3 has a huge battery life, even with flac files you can expect close to 30 hrs of playback, whereas X2 can manage close to 11 hours of flac and 16 hours of mp3 playback time.

J3 can record, can play FM and record it too, Has Bluetooth too. And more than that, it has some internal memory!! No comparison here X2 is not bad for the price you pay. I hope its price stays close to 3000 Rs which is somewhere close to $50.

But this player has more power. Close to 20% more power when compared to J3. And the word is that it does good with Havi B3 pros too.

Main points: - Battery indicator is not accurate, UI is sluggish and slow, Customizing options are limited. Won’t play 24bit files and Format error is annoying, if it’s a Flac player, it should play everything. Keys are stiff and Response is not the mark. Back ground is not perfectly clean with super sensitive earphones like zero audio Doppio. Plenty of details for a small player but won’t come close to J3 or C2, Sounds a bit dark. Bass is nicely present, fun sound signature will appeal to new comers. I have to admit that it has plenty of power for a tiny player.

First and foremost, I would like to thank Hifinage(www.hifinage.com) who have initiated this review tour in India. Hopefully, we will have more tours like this in future.

Packaging:

The packaging, is very simple. A cardboard box with the DAP in a plastic chassis along with the USB cable.

Build Quality:

This is a solid little device. Brushed aluminum, with round metallic buttons on the top. Nicely fits in the hand or pocket and all the buttons are easily accessible. The way the buttons are lined up, once someone gets used to it, they can control it without even looking. I had a Sansa Clip+ three four years back and this definitely looks like an improved version of Clip+. My Clip+ died, once the headphone jack became loose. However, in X2, the jacks looks pretty solid and immovable.

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File Format Supported:

MP3, WMA, APE, FLAC, WAV and other music formats as per the box. I played MP3 (320 Kbps, APE and FLAC) and all played without any issues.

User Interface and Operation:

I just took out the SD card from my Cowon C2 and put into the X2 and turned it on. Immediately, I could select the song and play it. This made me very happy. No need to worry about additional software or spending hours trying to sync music from your computer on to the device. Once, I turned it on, I could start playing songs within a matter of few seconds, the short initialization time of this DAP is impressive.The interface is very basic and simple. There is a battery indicator, Artist Name, Song Name, Type of File(MP3 or Flac), Equalizer Mode Name.
There is a button for Menu, Volume Up, Volume Down, Select, Rewind and Fast Forward. Using these buttons on the menu, you can skip between songs or even go to the menu to play songs based on Folder.

If there is one thing, that could be improved in this device it would be the user interface. When you compare it with a Rockboxed Clip+ you can see that there are so many small things that could be done. However, I feel these can be incorporated with a Firmware update. Hopefully, we will have something soon.

One more issue that I found is there is no Lock Button. I feel when the device is in a person's pocket a lock option is extremely important so that accidentally, songs don't get skipped or volume doesn't get increased etc.

Sound

I did a side by side comparison between my C2 and the X2 and couldn't really tell much of a difference. There is a popping sound when the device is turned off, apart from that I couldn't hear any disturbance when its is in paused state. Essentially, for $50 I do not think we have anything better in the market at present. I might be mistaken and please correct me if I am wrong. My C2 is almost 4 years old and I paid around $120 for it back then. The volume goes up to a maximum of 40 and I just had to go till 22 and I could play it with my HD 25 1-II, MDR Z1000, AH-D340 without any issues. I usually use all my cans directly out of my C2 and wouldn't be able to tell how these would perform with power hungry cans.

Conclusion: This device is meant for anyone, who is buying their first DAP and don't want spend a whole lot of money or someone who likes a small device with simple UI which efficiently plays music. Once my C2 dies, this is the DAP I am going to buy

@WhatToChoose Ohh!! I was not aware of the bricking issues. That is a serious concern. My C2 has been performing well for almost 4 years and that is why I haven't thought about changing my DAP. And, since I received a Demo Unit only for Four days, I don't know if the bricking concern are really answered here

Hello,
I have option to have one of these used for almost nothing but need to know if it supports M4a?
I do not want to deprive someone else from getting it if not.
If yes, how will it play with amp FiiO A3 and Koss ks 75s please?
Thank You.
revhed